Bionic Robotics: Autonomous Biohybrid Machines powered by skeletal muscle tissues

The inspiration from this project lies in the ability of living organisms to interact with and adapt to the changing environment in real time. The Bionic Robotics seeks to develop machines using biologicallyinspired functionality, to create new designs that can interact more effectively with the natural environment. Conventional robotics use rigid components powered by hard actuation techniques, such as hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. These well-developed robotic systems have wide applications in industry, however suffer from poor autonomy, low adaptability to dynamic environments, and low scalability. Bionic robotics, inspired by living organisms, aim to endow existing robots with sensing and response capabilities to allow them to autonomously interact with unstructured environments. This project will develop an autonomous soft robotic system. It is powered by biohybrid actuators, and capable of both monitoring its biomolecular environment and responding through changes in motion.
Living components will be integrated into the robot in two fundamental areas: living-cell actuation and bacteria-based biosensing. These two components will be linked using electronic control circuitry. Specifically, this project aims to:
- Create a new biohybrid actuator based on skeletal muscle cells: living cell-based actuation uses the intrinsic motion of cells from contractile tissues to generate motion. It uses molecular motors hierarchically organised to form macroscopic artificial contractile tissues. Skeletal muscle tissue is an attractive candidate for the construction of biohybrid actuators. It can be engineered from the millimetre to meter length and be readily controlled using external stimulation. The student will investigate how these living systems operate and how they can be efficiently used in bionic robotics. Skeletal muscle can be controlled either by electricity or light. Electrical stimulation will be used for initial development of a system. However, this has been shown to induce the degradation of the skeletal muscle tissues over time, hence an optical stimulation approach (via optogenetics) will also be investigated.
- Build a biosensing interface: living cell-based robots are currently limited by their ability to communicate and respond to complex microenvironments. Creating new communication bridges between machine and surroundings are essential. The student will explore the use of the bacteria Escherichia coli (E.coli) for demonstration to enable communication between the external environment and robotic controlling system. We will choose Isopropyl beta-D-1thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) as a common chemical inducer. With the presence of IPTG, genetically modified E.coli can express a green fluorescent protein (GFP), which will be detected by the following electronic system.
- Develop an electronic control system to facilitate communication between actuator and biosensor: the student will develop an electronic interface based on off-the-shelf components to exchange information between the biosensor and cell-actuator. Light-emitting diodes and photodetectors will be used to excite and detect the fluorescence change from the biosensor which will be interpreted by an embedded microprocessor and used to stimulate the livingcell actuator through light pulses

Addressing UK skills demand: The most important impact of the CDT will be to train a new generation of Chemical Biology PhD graduates (~80) to be future leaders of enterprise, molecular technology innovation and translation for academia and industry. They will be able to embrace the life science's industrialisation thereby filling a vital skills gap in UK industry. These students will be able to bridge the divide between academia/industry and development/application across the physical/mathematical sciences and life sciences, as well as the human-machine interfaces. The technology programme of the CDT will empower our students as serial inventors, not reliant on commercial solutions.
CDT Network-Communication & Engagement: The CDT will shape the landscape by bringing together >160 research groups with leading players from industry, government, tech accelerators, SMEs and CDT affiliates. The CDT is pioneering new collaboration models, from co-located prototyping warehouses through to hackathons-these will redefine industry-academic collaborations and drive technology transfer.
UK plc: The technologies generated by the CDT will produce IP with potential for direct commercial exploitation and will also provide valuable information for healthcare and industry. They will redefine the state of the art with respect to the ability to make, measure, model and manipulate molecular interactions in biological systems across multiple length scales. Coupled with industry 4.0 approaches this will reduce the massive, spiralling cost of product development pipelines. These advances will help establish the molecular engineering rules underlying challenging scientific problems in the life sciences that are currently intractable. The technology advances and the corresponding insight in biology generated will be exploitable in industrial and medical applications, resulting in enhanced capabilities for end-users in biological research, biomarker discovery, diagnostics and drug discovery.
These advances will make a significant contribution to innovation in UK industry, with a 5-10 year timeframe for commercial realisation. e.g. These tools will facilitate the identification of illness in its early stages, minimising permanent damage (10 yrs) and reducing associated healthcare costs. In the context of drug discovery, the ability to fuse the power of AI with molecular technologies that provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of disease, target and biomarker validation and testing for side effects of candidates will radically transform productivity (5-10 yrs). Developments in automation and rapid prototyping will reduce the barrier to entry for new start-ups and turn biology into an information technology driven by data, computation and high-throughput robotics. Technologies such as integrated single cell analysis and label free molecular tracking will be exploitable for clinical diagnostics and drug discovery on shorter time scales (ca.3-5 yrs).
Entrepreneurship & Exploitation: Embedded within the CDT, the DISRUPT tech-accelerator programme will drive and support the creation of a new wave of student-led spin-out vehicles based on student-owned IP.
Wider Community: The outreach, responsible research and communication skill-set of our graduates will strengthen end-user engagement outside their PhD research fields and with the general public. Many technologies developed in the CDT will address societal challenges, and thus will generate significant public interest. Through new initiatives such as the Makerspace the CDT will spearhead new citizen science approaches where the public engage directly in CDT led research by taking part in e.g hackathons. Students will also engage with a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including policy makers, regulatory bodies and end-users. e.g. the Molecular Quarter will ensure the CDT can promote new regulatory frameworks that will promote quick customer and patient access to CDT led breakthroughs.